LightSwitch: Passing data between screens - Example 4: Passing a database item without JavaScript

Published on 20 September 2013 • Estimated reading time: 1 minutes

For other posts in this series, see our series list.

In our last example, we passed data from one screen to another using a bit of JavaScript. However, there are two issues:

• If you do not select an item before clicking the button—it errors.
• It requires code, and LightSwitch is about making the drudge work easier, so how can it help here?

This post, and the rest in the series, will be a bit shorter as we are covering the same theme but applied in different ways—so make sure you read the preceding parts or you may feel a bit lost.

As with each part of this series, the code can be found on GitHub.

Example 4: Passing a database item without JavaScript

1. On the BrowseAnimals screen we already have, we once again add a button to the screen in the command bar with the following properties:

   • Choose an existing method: showWeasel
   • data: AnimalsSet.selectedItem.Name

   What we are doing here is having the Weasel_screen shown, and because we added a parameter, we can use the built-in tools to set that parameter to a data item on the screen.

   (In the above image, the parameter is labeled myData—for our example, it will be data.)

   This is it! It is far simpler than example 3 and also doesn’t have the issues we mentioned at the start, so you should always use this option if you can.